City duo on course for Games success

Commonwealth games duo Adam Whitehead and Michael Williamson confirmed that their preparations are well on course as they spearheaded an impressive showing by City of Coventry at the ASA National Championships.

Commonwealth games duo Adam Whitehead and Michael Williamson confirmed that their preparations are well on course as they spearheaded an impressive showing by City of Coventry at the ASA National Championships.

Swimming in their home pool, the city squad led the way with a return of 14 medals.

"It was a good week for us and a very positive step forward," said head of coaching Nick Sellwood.

"The consistency of the team was impressive, and the things we had been working on in practice sessions were improved when put into racing conditions."

Whitehead finished off by taking gold in the 200 metres breaststroke to add to silver medals in both the 100 - ahead of Commonwealth No.1 James Gibson - and 50 metres breast-stroke finals.

"It places Adam on track for another realistic shot at a Commonwealth medal," said Sellwood.

"He is ranked fourth in the Commonwealth at both 50 and 100 metres, and he is improving all the time.

"He has got to get past James Gibson in Manchester, but he is swimmimg consistently fast and I don't see any reasons why he won't go close."

Williamson took the bronze medal behind Whitehead in the 200 and will be working at increasing his stroke rate over the second half of the event in the final run-up to Manchester.

"If he can do that, again I think we can see a big improvement from Michael at the Games," said Sellwood.

Coventry won three medals on the first day when Whitehead clocked 28.90 sec for second place in the 50m breaststroke.

Rachel Genner also took silver as she upset the form book behind Zoe Baker in the women's 50m breaststroke, finishing ahead of highly-rated Emma Robinson of Ireland and Kate Haywood, in 32.95 with Grace Callaghan continuing her improvement with a personal best 33.41 for fifth place.

Helen Don-Duncan re-established herself in the top 25 world rankings with a storming 200 metres backstroke for bronze in 2-14.27 ahead of Commonwealth champion Katie Sexton.

Jason Beresford just missed the medals in his first national final with fourth place in the 100m butterfly in 56.98 sec, while Kevin Barter produced a new best time of 2-07.14 for fifth in the 200m backstroke and Greg Booth was seventh in the 50m freestyle.

Booth also won the silver medal in the 100m freestyle - his first senior individual medal - in 51.97 behind British record-holder Matt Kidd.

Barter (27.47) added a silver in the 50m backstroke - another first senior national medal for the Coventry University student.

Whitehead led for a significant proportion of the 100m breast-stroke final, losing out to Chris Cook for the gold medal in 1-03.19 but finishing ahead of Commonwealth Games rivals Darren Mew and Gibson. Williamson placed fifth in 1-05.47.

The women's 100m breast-stroke produced two more medals for the home team with Genner, suffering from a migraine after posting the fastest heat time of 1-11.07, showing mental toughness to take the silver behind Heidi Earp in 1-11.45 and 14-year-old Callaghan finishing third in a personal best 1-11.53 to beat British junior record-holder Kate Haywood.

A young women's medley relay team of Don-Duncan (1-04.38), Callaghan (1-11), Shelly Alcock (1-06) and late replacement Sophie Caul (1-00.90) finished a cred-